FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 215 



cast net. The reptiles are stored alive in kraals, or 

 " crawls," at Kingston and other ports, and are fed 

 on grass. This herbage grows on the shore 

 opposite Kingston harbour and is fetched over at 

 a cost of a shilling a boat-load. The green turtle 

 alone goes to England. I used to watch a number 

 of these turtle in a crawl near the garden of the 

 Myrtle Bank Hotel, and the green turtle was 

 invariably easier to handle than either the hawks- 

 bill or loggerhead, both of which struggled and bit 

 savagely. They are taken from the crawl to the 

 liners in small boats. All the liners take cargoes, 

 but they probably do best by the warmer, though 

 longer, route followed by the Royal Mail Company. 

 On the Tagus we shipped over a hundred and got 

 the bulk of them alive to Southampton. Some of 

 them were the cause of a rather amusing episode. 

 In the adjoining deck-room to my own was an 

 invalid, with the ship's doctor in close attendance. 

 I told her that if she should want him in the night, 

 she had only to knock at the wall, as I am a light 

 sleeper. Sure enough, at two in the morning came 

 the summons. Tap! tap! then again. In a 

 twinkling I was out, and then the tapping came 

 again, this time from overhead. I listened at the 

 patient's door and heard no sound. So I went 

 back to bed. And well it was that I did not fetch 

 the doctor from his cabin, for the invalid had slept 

 soundly through the night, and the tapping came 

 from the flipper of a turtle lying on its back on the 

 spar-deck overhead. 



Those who wish to give their stay-at-home 

 friends a taste of turtle-soup without the trouble 

 and expense of taking home a live one will find a 



